When will we wake up to the smoking crisis?

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, January 9, 2008

In 2005, I began to work with Andrew Roraback, my state senate representative from the 30th district. I presented him with our situation in Connecticut that an individual must be 18 years old to purchase tobacco products, but Connecticut has no age minimum on who can smoke them.

Sen. Roraback took this challenge and ran with it. In May of 2007, he sent a bill -- No. 703 -- up for vote to prohibit anyone under the age of 18 to possess any tobacco products or smoke them.

Unfortunately, Connecticut failed us citizens again when it comes to our health of our kids in this state. The senate bill failed by a vote of 24-12.

I applaud Sen. Roraback for his efforts to get this law passed.

I am writing to let everyone know our state is not caring about our health when it comes to smoking.

This country will take lettuce off the shelves across this country if two people have gotten sick, but thousands of people die each year from smoking-related illnesses, and our government just turns its head and ignores this huge social issue.

Connecticut spends $1.63 billion each year on health-care costs directly related to smoking.